


Dreams, Enlightening

by Aggression



Series: Zine Pieces [3]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Guardians (League of Legends), Dreams and Nightmares, Prophetic Dreams, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 03:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21047462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aggression/pseuds/Aggression
Summary: Sarah Fortune has been receiving troubling dreams from the First Star.





	Dreams, Enlightening

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally published in the UNITED Star Guardians Charity Zine! 
> 
> If you'd like to, you call follow me on twitter at @agent_blurr!

When Sarah needed to think she swam laps.

The water was cool, crystal, awakening. She liked to think that the water’s clarity would bleed into herself, washing away doubt as she cut through both her thoughts and the water. The facility by the school was outdoors, but not even the heat of the sun could lessen the chill of the pool.

To Sarah Fortune, it should be the perfect set up to ease her worries. This was her third day in a row visiting the facility. She swam until her lungs and legs burned. The weariness of her body failed to distract her from the troubles of her mind.

An hour later, she slammed her way into the house she shared with Ahri and the rest of the team, throwing her gym bag to the floor. The thump echoed in the empty hallway. A moment later Ahri slipped out from the kitchen. Eyebrows raised, Ahri took in the sight of her second-in-command as Sarah threw her shoes into the closet.

“Maybe you need a more aggressive sport.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Sarah found her leader’s smirk infuriating. There must have been anger in her eyes, as Ahri’s mouth softened into a genuine smile, so small it was almost indiscernible. “Swimming is apparently not enough to take your mind away from whatever is troubling it.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Sarah. Are you going to tell me what it is?”

Silence. Throughout the whole house. Sarah changed the topic. “No one else is home?”

Ahri allowed it, momentarily. “Soraka has hauled Ezreal off for grocery shopping. Syndra said she wanted time to herself. I believe she went window shopping.” Her leader motioned Sarah into the kitchen. “I’m sure there’s leftovers I can heat up for you. You’re not getting out of this conversation.”

Sarah knew when “no” was not an acceptable answer. Slowly, she followed, and she fell heavily into a chair as Ahri grabbed Tupperware from the fridge, methodical as she prepared a plate for Sarah. Neither spoke until Ahri set the plate to heat in the microwave.

“Now, if I ask again are you going to tell me?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Fine. Maybe I’ll guess.” Ahri smirked, again. This one harsher, a little vicious as her lips began to pull back to show teeth. Her most notable sign of disapproval.

“Why two teams? Why one team an old, tattered collection of scraps? And why one as green as that one girl’s hair? I’ve been asking these questions myself. Their leader, Lux, thinks this all means we’re _supposed _to work together.” Sarah snorted as Ahri bothered to motion air quotes. Her leader was switching to melodramatics and poetics. Never a good sign with her.

“Or are you worried more so about yourself? Will Lux’s red head be showing you up?”

“She dreams she could.”

Ahri laughed. There was a ding. She pulled the plate out of the microwave, grabbed utensils, and placed it all in front of Sarah. “Maybe she is. Maybe that’s what her dreams show her.”

Sarah knew she failed to hide the emotion on her face at that comment. Ahri sat, leaning back into her chair, her expression falling. “That’s what’s bothering you then.”

Sarah excused herself from replying as she shoveled food into her mouth. Ahri glared out a window. “We don’t believe in that. That was Karma’s business, and look what good it did her.”

“It’s been the exact same one three nights in a row now.”

Conflict was plain on Ahri’s face. Finally, she gave in to curiosity. “What is it about?”

Sarah matched her leader, glaring at the darkening sky. “We shouldn’t let it matter, right?”

They sat; Sarah ate. A chair scraped against the floor. Sarah followed Ahri from the corner of her eyes as she exited the kitchen.

***

The dream was always the same. Cacophony of sound. Flashes of colour - starlight - as her team worked together. The horde of enemies before them, emerging from inky blackness that grew larger and larger, stretching towards their group.

She always felt so focused, in a battle trance. Always felt so assured that the team’s formation was tight. The threat was in front; her team had her back covered.

Sarah of the dream had no doubts. Only determination, concentration, the battle-lust she worked to control. She fought, strengthened by a sense of security. Even without her old guard. Ahri the only remainder. Karma, Xayah, and Rakan - the lost spirits behind her conviction.

Ezreal flashed in and out around her. Soraka was a constant presence of warmth and support that felt all encompassing. And then Sarah would realize Syndra was missing. Syndra was always deepest in the backline. Sarah would begin to turn, to search for their fifth.

The enemy was in front. The pain, a burst of force and energy, that came from behind. The glow of purple magic would curl around Sarah, entering the edges of her vision as the blast burned around her. Sarah always saw the horror on Ahri’s face as she fell, right before she would wake up.

Sarah eyes opened. Her body was lead, her breathing laboured. Always the same dream.

She could never tell Ahri.

Ahri would attempt to defy the dream’s fate. Maybe one day their formation was going to fail, and Sarah would be the one to face the consequences. This was the hopeful option, the one Ahri would work to believe in. Personally, Sarah thought it was more likely that Syndra was going to stab them in the back. There was something that made Sarah distrust Syndra. She had always been so distant and deliberate when it came to what information she would share with the team, both in relation to herself and her knowledge of their enemies. Syndra was calculating, and Sarah had no idea what end goal she was working towards.

Sarah admitted that the dream gave no clear indication about what was attacking her. The whims of the universe always gave too little information. Dreams were more a hindrance than an aid, a fact Sarah and Ahri had come to agree upon. It was one of the reasons why any notion of destiny was just a matter of bullshit. Sarah and Ahri shared their hatred of destiny, but Sarah would take a more realistic approach to this problem than her leader. Ahri would either force their team to practice defensive formations for hours on end, or try to prevent betrayal. Ahri’s strengths lied within working with people, even if she currently spent time pushing most people away. For all of her cynicism, Ahri believed in this new team.

Sarah had no time to place hope in others. Whether she died because their formation broke or Syndra turned would not matter if Sarah could find a way to protect herself from the attack.

***

Calm, and somewhat stoic, Karma had been the anchor of the old team. Karma, wisdom incarnate. Ahri the charisma. Xayah the precision. Rakan the flair. Sarah the determination. They each had a role, supporting each other as they worked together. That felt like a lifetime ago.

Sarah always nipped thoughts that began to wonder if her dead teammates would approve of her quest of vengeance in the bud. She knew Karma would not have approved of Ahri’s and her’s outright rejections of destiny. She imagined Karma’s retort. _“You’re fools for ignoring forces around you. That act upon you.”_

Destiny. Karma had believed in it. Karma had understood it - accepted it in and without her being. Karma had been a year her senior in age, though a decade more mature than Sarah with her personal poise and resolute interpretation of the powers of the universe. Karma had cooled Sarah’s hot head in a way Ahri still could not manage to do.

There was laughter, the slapping of feet on the deck. Five splashes as a children’s class entered the pool. Sarah shook her head. She had become lost in thought while drying off after a Sunday morning swim. For a moment, she watched the kids as they played. They splashed each other before the instructor called them to order. Sarah longed for their carefree energy.

She strode to the other end of the pool. Sarah didn’t enter. Instead, she grabbed a lounge chair, pulling it into the sunlight. She had never been conventional in meditation, much to Karma’s ire. Sarah had allowed Karma to pull her into her own sessions. Karma was the only reason she had begun the practice. Together, the two found time to unwind.

Sarah had not mediated since Karma’s passing. Not in the era of this mish-mash team she was currently on. She laid on the chair and closed her eyes. Basking in the sunlight, her mind did not clear, but focused.

Karma’s belief in destiny had always been different because her connection to it had always been different. Karma had belief in her dreams.

_“Not dreams, __visions.” _Karma had explained the distinction to Sarah in one of their relaxation (_“centering”) _sessions. _“They are glimpses of possible outcomes, granted to those who open their selves to the universe. Sometimes, visions are forced upon one as warnings from the First Star. Any of us can experience them. You are just not listening.”_

The class was soothing background noise as they swam laps, practicing their forms. A light breeze ruffled Sarah’s bangs, now dry from the heat of the sun.

Sarah clenched the arms of the lounge chair, gritting her teeth. Where had been warnings to save Karma? Xayah? Rakan? She certainly was more closed off to the whims of the universe now, now that her team was gone. The warning about this upcoming danger felt cheap. A tormenting plague instead of a gift of insight. What did it matter now? After Sarah had already failed her family.

Sarah shot up from her chair. She charged to the change room, annoyed that the door to the girl’s locker room was not a door she could slam.

***

The lunch bell rang. On warm days, their team ate together in full, claiming one of the picnic tables out by the school’s athletic field. This Monday was warm and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. They had sat at their table, and Ezreal had immediately called for a round of iced coffees.

Sarah had no idea how she had been the one elected to actually retrieve said iced coffees, but she was currently making her way to the vending machines.

_Ezreal should be doing this._

Classmates – year-mates, juniors, and seniors alike - parted as she stalked back into the school. It was not a long walk, but it was going to be a hassle to juggle her way back with five bottles. Sarah arrived at the vending machines, and raised an eyebrow as she watched a pink-haired girl glower at the machine for drinks.

“Stop eating my money!”

“Was it on the iced coffee?”

Lux turned, almost knocking herself off balance. Sarah watched as the other’s mouth hung open. Her eyebrows furrowed as she searched for words.

“No, the iced tea. Maybe it’s just that selection, if you want to give it a try?”

Sarah nodded and Lux stepped out of the way. She left a respectable amount of space between them, but Sarah knew Lux was peering over her shoulder as she bought the first drink. She was putting in change for the second when Lux sighed.

“It’s just the tea then. Just my luck.” A pause. “Hey, ah, is the iced coffee any good?”

Small talk. Always with the small talk. Sarah didn’t have time for it. “Ahri mentioned that you had asked her if she was going to lead both of our teams.”

Sarah met Lux’s eyes, and watched as a deep blush shot up the other girl’s neck, quickly blossoming over her cheeks. “Well… Ah… it…” Lux waved her hands, shifted her weight to her back foot.

Sarah was turning to buy a third drink when Lux spoke. “Honestly,” her voice gained strength after that one-word admission, “it seemed like a logical arrangement. It’s obvious your team has far more experience than mine. And we _were_ meant to meet after all.”

The third drink was bought, a deep thud in a pause in the conversation. Sarah was surprised that Lux stayed. “What makes you say that?”

“Lulu, well, dreamed it. She was so confident that we had to be at Camp Targon, and look what happened.”

Sarah kept her annoyance out of her voice. Or at least tried to. _Of course she dreamt it._ “You mean you almost dying?”

Lux flinched. “I mean our teams got the chance to meet and work together. It wasn’t perfect, but I don’t think it was a bad experience.”

“You genuinely want both teams to work together?”

“Yes, how could it be a bad thing?”

_How could I trust five more people when I can’t even trust all of the four I have by me?_ Sarah ignored her thought and bought two more drinks. She began to collect the five of them, working out how to balance them in her arms. Lux noticed the predicament.

“Would you like help carrying those?”

“No,” too terse, “I’ll manage.” Sarah attempted to pin the other with a glare. Lux had the decency to look abashed as she began to put in the change for a drink for herself. She keyed in her own iced coffee this time.

“The door to outside’s just down the hallway. Let me get that at least.”

Sarah wondered if Lux practiced killing with kindness. It would be far too intentional to reject what could be called common courtesy twice. “Yeah, sure.”

Lux led the way. She turned to Sarah before she opened the doors. “Look. I don’t know what’s going on. With two teams being here, or with whatever you and Ahri and the rest of your team has going on. My offer - my team’s offer still stands. We’re willing to work together with you guys, just keep that in mind, Miss Fortune.”

Sarah didn’t reply as she exited the building. She paused after the door closed.

_Huh, she remembered to call me “Miss Fortune.”_

***

It began. Another night, the same dream.

Sarah, at times when she had a moment to herself, had previously reflected upon her dreams. Not along the same vein that Karma had examined the visions as she termed them. Not upon their content, nor upon that content’s meaning or implications, but upon their nature. Sarah would recognize the dreams as being repetitive after waking, but she rarely escaped the delusion of their false reality while she was experiencing them. No matter what, she could never escape the dream itself. She always had to watch it until the end. Her dreams forced her to relive moments again and again, her feelings and sensations seeding deep within her, being ones that were true and lasting.

Dream Sarah began to turn. There was no pain. Instead, shock, confusion, _relief. _A baton spun, glancing by her, right in front of her face. It brought a gust of magic, the shimmer of a shield, light pink in colouring.

_You’re kidding me. Just because of one conversation around a fucking vending machine._

Sarah’s vision then was filled with purple as raw power pulsed over the shield. She felt trepidation as the pink light began to waver, but the baton twirled past her again, renewing the shield’s strength.

Sarah woke up before pink and purple dissipated. She shoved herself upright in her bed, fisting a pillow before she threw it against her wall.

She should have no ability to recognize the feeling of Lux’s power. They had been too far apart at the battle at Camp Targon for her to get a taste of the girl’s magical signature. However, Sarah of the dream knew it - _trusted it._

That was a point to examine later. A second pillow followed the first. Her shout of frustration roused Boki and Baki.

Purple was Syndra’s colour, but it was also a colour of the Void. Lux’s magical signature had masked the magical signature of the purple magic.

Karma’s voice came to mind: _“Visions are either a blessing or a curse. I have not decided on which yet.”_


End file.
